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I think the FDA is dodging the obvious since the US doesn't want to alienate the UK: R-Value with UK mutation: 3? Effectiveness with 1 dose: 66%? Probability
by foolmeonce 6y ago
I think the FDA is dodging the obvious since the US doesn't want to alienate the UK:
R-Value with UK mutation:
3?
Effectiveness with 1 dose:
66%?
Probability of breeding a new mutation if you gradually vaccinate everyone in the UK up to only 1 dose:
99.9%?
Once 2/3 of people have 1 dose, mutations that make the vaccines worthless should dominate given the available pool, and then the available pool is back to everyone again.
- dcolkitt 6y agoAll of the mRNA vaccines target the spike protein. Coronavirus spike protein mutations have only ever been observed to occur in bats- never humans. Therefore the number of vaccinated people will almost assuredly not increase the likelihood of a resistant strain.
- foolmeonce 6y agoI would accept a similar kind of reasoning in an argument towards caution, but not in an argument for seeing what happens with prolonged partial but insufficient immunity. Aside from near certainty that a change to the target protein is game over, we have no idea what other mutations could render immune responses triggered by the vaccines worthless, and I don't see the ethics in an experiment to find these mutations.
- JohnCohorn 6y agoFrom what I recall from Dr. John Campbell’s excellent daily videos, the UK strategy was not to give only one dose, but to simply delay the second dose a few weeks so that more people could get their first injection from the initial supply(presumably supply will increase over time). That sounds much lower risk. I think the single dose proposal was a US thing.